After waiting until 9 A.M. for the islanders to begin their attack, I sent a few scouts through the brushwood to ascertain what the Wenya were doing, and within an hour they returned to say that nothing could be heard of them. Moving forwards by the path, we discovered to our good fortune that the people had abandoned the island apparently. The extent of the villages proved them to be a populous community, and the manner in which they were arranged gave them an appearance resembling a town on the Upper Nile. Each village, however, was distinct from the next, though only short distances separated them, and each possessed four or five streets 30 feet wide, running in parallel lines, with cross alleys leading from one side of the village to the other. The entire population of this town or cluster of villages might be moderately estimated at 6000. On the opposite side was another large community, whose inhabitants manned every rock to gaze at us in perfect security, for, since they could not hurt us, we certainly entertained no designs against them.

The Livingstone from the right bank across the island to the left bank is about 1300 yards broad, of which width 40 yards is occupied by the right branch, 760 yards by the island of the Wenya, 500 yards by the great river. Contracted to this narrow space, between the rocky and perpendicular bluffs of the island and the steep banks opposite, the uproar, as may be imagined, is very great. As the calm river, which is 1300 yards wide one mile above the falls, becomes narrowed, the current quickens, and rushes with resistless speed for a few hundred yards, and then falls about 10 feet into a boiling and tumultuous gulf, wherein are lines of brown waves 6 feet high leaping with terrific bounds, and hurling themselves against each other in dreadful fury.

Until I realized the extent of the volume that was here precipitated, I could hardly believe that it was indeed a vast river that was passing before me through this narrowed channel. I have seen many waterfalls during my travels in various parts of the world, but here was a stupendous river flung in full volume over a waterfall only 500 yards across. The river at the last cataract of the Stanley Falls does not merely fall: it is precipitated downwards. The Ripon Falls at the Victoria Lake outlet, compared to this swift descent and furious on-rush, were languid. The Victoria Nile, as it swept down the steep declivity of its bed towards Unyoro, is very pretty, picturesque, even a sufficiently exciting scene; but the Livingstone, with over ten times the volume of the Victoria Nile, though only occupying the same breadth of bed, conveys to the sense the character of irresistible force, and unites great depth with a tumultuous rush.

A solar observation taken opposite the last of the Stanley Falls proved the latitude to be north 0° 15′ 0″, or seventeen miles north of the first broken water of the Sixth Cataract; and a few miles below the falls, on the 28th of January, we obtained north latitude 0° 20′ 0″. By boiling point I ascertained that the declination was nearly 120 feet in these twenty-two miles, the altitude above sea at the Seventh Cataract being 1511 feet. As there are only seven miles really occupied by the Sixth and Seventh Cataracts, the intermediate fifteen miles being calm flowing water, we may not be far wrong in giving the slope of the river at the two falls a declination of 17 feet to the mile.

The rocky point of the left bank was formerly connected with the rocky island of the Wenya by a ridge, which appears to have fallen southward, judging from the diagonal strata, but since that period the river has worn down this obstruction, and the cataract is now about three hundred yards south-east of the straits, pounding away at the ledge with the whole of its force.

A glance at the sketch of the Seventh Cataract of the Stanley Falls shows a line of tall poles planted below the falls, which assist us not only to form some estimate of the depth of the water, but also of the industry of the Wenya. A space of about 300 yards, in the middle of the falls, is unapproachable, but to a distance of 100 yards on each side, by taking advantage of the rocks, the natives have been enabled to fix upright heavy poles, 6 inches in diameter, to each of which they attach enormous fish-baskets by means of rattan-cane cables. There are probably sixty or seventy baskets laid in the river on each side, every day; and though some may be brought up empty, in general they seem to be tolerably successful, for out of half-a-dozen baskets that my boatmen brought up next day for examination twenty-eight large fish were collected, one of which—a pike—was 40 inches long, 24 inches round the body, and weighed 17 lbs.

Higher up the river we had also been accustomed to see piles of oysters and mussel-shells along the banks, especially while passing the lands of the Upper Wenya, between Rukombeh’s landing near Ukusu and the First Cataract of Stanley Falls. These in some instances, might be taken as the only remaining traces of departed generations of Wenya, settled here when, through internecine troubles, they had been ejected from some more favoured locality.

The Wenya of the Seventh Cataract struck me as being not only more industrious than the aboriginal Baswas, but also more inventive than any we had yet seen, for in their villages we discovered square wooden chests, as large as an ordinary portmanteau, wherein their treasures of beads and berries, large oyster and mussel-shells, were preserved. The paddles were beautiful specimens, made out of wood very much resembling mahogany; a vast quantity of half-inch cord made out of Hyphene palm and banana-fibre was also discovered. In almost every house, also, there were one or more ten-gallon earthenware jars filled with palm butter, while ivory seemed to be a drug, for we found three large tusks entirely rotten and useless, besides numbers of ivory war-horns, and ivory pestles for pounding cassava into flour.

After building another camp above the creek-like branch near the right bank, we availed ourselves of some of the numerous piles of poles which the Wenya had cut for sinking in the river to lay a roadway over the rocks, from the level of the great river down to the lower level of the creek, and by night the boat and canoes were in the water and out of danger.

Jan. 27.—The next day, while descending this creek, we were attacked both from front and rear, and almost the whole of the afternoon we were occupied in defending a rude camp we had hastily thrown up, while our non-combatants lay sheltered by a high bank and our canoes. Towards sunset the savages retired.

Jan. 28.—On the morning of the 28th we resumed our labours with greater energy, and by 10 A.M. we were clear of the last of the Stanley Falls, thus closing a series of desperate labours, which had occupied us from the 6th of January, a period of twenty-two days, during the nights and days of which we had been beset by the perverse cannibals and insensate savages who have made the islands amid the cataracts their fastnesses, and now—